The American university Rutgers has acceded to demonstrators’ requests to include Kashmiris and Palestinians on the list of “occupied people.” Do we find this surprising? No, assuming we haven’t become oblivious to the realities of Western campuses. In Western colleges and universities, innate anti-Israel and anti-Jewish emotions are just as powerful as anti-Indian and anti-Hindu ones.
Let us first examine anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiments in the West. If one believes that anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses in the West is a recent development, they have already been duped and deceived. For the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has only brought attention to the vibrant anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish environment on these campuses.
However, there are distinctions between America and Europe here as well. Similar to how the shouts of the azaadi and tukde tukde in some of the best Indian universities had no resonance outside of the campuses a few years ago, even though we are currently experiencing the worst kind of protests on US campuses, the situation in the rest of America is essentially unchanged.
However, things are far worse in Europe. Thanks to the growth of the Far Right in the West and, more significantly, the large-scale, mostly unchecked immigration of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiments have become deeply ingrained in European society.
A 2011 survey conducted in seven nations by the University of Bielefeld on behalf of the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation is used by Manfred Gerstenfeld in his book Demonizing Israel and the Jews. According to the report, “the mainstream of European societies has profoundly been penetrated by the view that Israel has genocidal intentions towards the Palestinians—which is tantamount to Israel being a Nazi state.”
63% of Poles, according to the study, believe that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.” According to Gerstenfeld, the study’s lowest percentages, 38% and 39% of people, respectively, were found in Italy and the Netherlands. Between 40 and 50 percent of people in Hungary, Portugal, Germany, and Great Britain hold these virulently anti-Semitic views.
It makes sense that hate crimes against Jews and Israelis have been occurring often in Europe for a long time. While hate crimes against Jews and Israelis are common in France (maybe because of the country’s unwavering secularism), anti-Semitic sentiment is most prevalent in the Scandinavian region.
When Islamists simply urge the authorities in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to bend, they are frequently willing to crawl. “We advise Israelis who come to Denmark and want to go to the synagogue to wait to don their skullcaps until they enter the building and not to wear them in the street, irrespective of whether the areas they are visiting are seen as being safe,” media reported in 2012, citing Arthur Avnon, the Israeli ambassador to Denmark at the time.
Additionally, he cautioned guests against wearing obvious Star of David jewelry or speaking Hebrew aloud.
Gerstenfeld is harsh in his criticism of these Nordic nations, which frequently pass judgment on the condition of liberalism and democracy in other nations and continents. According to him, “a wide range of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incidents in Scandinavia demonstrate how these nations are mistakenly viewed as role models for democratic societies.”
The situation in Europe has only become worse in recent years, and many analysts think that the continent is on the verge of irreversibly turning into “Eurabia.” The UK police instructed Jewish and pro-Israel students in 2016 “to not publicly announce the locations of their events,” which is a sign of the institutionalization of anti-Semitism in Europe and on European campuses.
American society, on the other hand, is still mainly pro-Israel. Four out of five Americans, according to a recent survey, back Israel in the ongoing conflict with Hamas. Due to the significant inflow of money from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China into American universities, there are still pockets of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism on these campuses.
What is being witnessed is the formation of a rainbow alliance by these anti-Semitic forces with progressive, Left-wing, feminist, and ethnic minority groups along with LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter activists. As a result, the Islamist cause now enjoys a social justice aura.
Israel’s ruin has thus come to represent the fight against oppression and injustice. Both Islamists and Left-leaning “liberals” now use the slogan “river to the sea” as a focal point.
A potentially anti-Semitic and anti-Israel concoction has been created by the union of the Left-wing cause with the Islamist goal. According to Andrew Pessin and Doron S. Ben-Atar’s 2018 book Anti-Zionism on college: The University, Free Speech and BDS, “the new campus orthodoxy sees” Israel as “an apartheid regime founded on racism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and colonialist imperialism.”
Because the whole notion of a Jewish state in that region rests on the eviction of others and because the idea of Jewish democracy is an insulting oxymoron that can only serve to maintain the unfair and discriminatory status quo, Zionism, according to this theory, “can neither be defended nor corrected.” Thus, Zionism and Israel are portrayed as abominations that are illegitimate and unchangeable.
Kashmir: History and Hindu origin
Now let’s discuss the Kashmir problem. What Kashmir has to do with a crisis on US campuses that seems to have its roots in Gaza may be a mystery to some. After all, Kashmir is by no means comparable to Gaza.
Kashmir has always played a significant role in Indian history and civilization. In actuality, it signaled the emergence of Indian culture, literature, and religion for the majority of antiquity. While Kalhan referred to Kashmir as “the best place in the Himalayas,” Kalidas said it was “more beautiful than heaven.”
According to tradition, Satisar Lake was formed when a piece of Sati’s body fell into Kashmir during Shiva’s catastrophic dance, or tandav. This is how the Kashmir valley had its start. Shakthi Peethas are the locations where various body parts fell.
When a renowned sage (rishi) by the name of Kashyap arrived one day, he drained the water and a lovely valley emerged from the lake. Enchanted, the Rishi called on saints and academics from various regions to settle in this valley, which came to be known as Kashyapsar, Kashyapmar, or Kashmir, which means the residence of Kashyap, in honor of its founder, Kashyap Rishi.
Due to its connections to Shiva and Sati, the area has long been known as the center of “Kashmir Shaivism,” while Buddhism also has its roots in this area. Because of Kashmir’s unique spirit, culture, and intellectual atmosphere, even Adi Shankaracharya wrote poetry honoring the Goddess and acknowledged Shakti’s dominance in his Advaita philosophy after visiting the valley.
The forefathers of the Kashmiri Pandits have an interesting story to tell about how they lived on the banks of the Saraswati River before moving to the valley at Kashyap’s request. For this reason, they were known as Saraswat Brahmins. According to legend, during a severe famine, Saraswati gave her son Saraswat fish to eat in order for him to survive and pass on the Vedic wisdom. Not so fortunate Brahmans were unable to learn, and all but Rishi Saraswat were ignorant of the Vedas.
This may possibly be the cause of the customary fish-eating of the Saraswat Brahmins of Mangalore and the Brahmins of Bengal, Kashmir, and Saraswat. The tale serves as a warning to anyone who restricts Hinduism to a certain cuisine.
Therefore, any story that portrays India as an occupying force is unhistorical and dishonest. More significantly, though, the suffering of the Pandits in Kashmir has shown the duplicity of Left-leaning “liberals” in both India and the West.
Western hypocrisy on Kashmir
Ironically, the forces in the West who portray themselves as champions of democracy, human rights, and liberalism—those who are appalled by the notion of Palestinians as “homeless”—have for the past thirty years said nothing in support of Kashmiri Pandits, who have been living in exile within their own nation since 1990. It is hypocritical to ignore the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits if one is an advocate for the displaced Palestinians. Rather, these international luminaries advocate for the rights of those who initiated the genocide against the minorities in Kashmir.
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Again, the solution is in the money coming into Western institutions from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China, which is primarily under the direction of Leftist elites. After all, the hate of India and Hinduism that unites the two ideologies—the “Godless” and the “God-fearing”—is what unites them. Recall the current Western caste dispute, which has ominous plans to give it a racial hue.
The hatred is so great that even the meritocracy of Indian STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) colleges is under attack, with one Harvard anthropology professor accusing Brahmins of being “cultural capitalists” and IITs of being “their mechanism for the production of more upper caste engineers.” In the Indian context, meritocracy—the cornerstone of contemporary Western civilization—has evolved into “a Brahminical conspiracy” to keep Dalits down and out!
These innate anti-Hindu and anti-India feelings are what make sure that India is attacked in the West under the guise of secularism, democracy, and liberalism, among other things. The irony is that these democratic-libertarian principles are more ingrained in Indian culture and civilization than they are in any other. Then again, how is it possible to expect those who support Stalin and Mao to advance democracy? And now these illiberal, undemocratic forces have teamed themselves with Islamists.
If not controlled in a timely manner, the outcome would be disastrous for India, which might soon find itself in Israeli shoes. Indians might also end up becoming the new generation of Jews in America, particularly in the workplace and on college campuses. Are the recent murders of Indian students in the United States portentous? Perhaps not.
However, it is always preferable for the nation and its citizens to be ready for the worst. Particularly when a renowned critic of India and Hindu baiter, who shamelessly invents a secular Aurangzeb and advocates for the destruction of Hindutva, is affiliated with an American university like Rutgers.
